AND FINALLY
Your loving suggestions for a final resting place
LAST week’s second letter asked: ‘How can I grieve without a grave to visit?’
The response from readers moved me greatly. There were s o many caring suggestions; here are just three extracts.
DAVID: ‘When my mother died, she wished to be cremated. She was particularly fond of a specific area in a region of mountains in the UK. I scattered her ashes in this spot. On my mantelpiece, I have a photograph of her with my family.
‘Next to it is my picture of the place where her ashes are scattered: a place of stunning scenery, gurgling streams, birdsong and butterflies. I have no need to go down to a cemetery to remember her. I do that every day when I look at the photos.’
SUE: ‘My husband’s happiest place in the final few months of his life was in our conservatory, where he could look at the garden and read. His ashes are still in the urn, tucked discreetly beside his chair, nobody but me knows they are there and I find them immensely comforting.
‘I realise a lot of people may find this strange, but everyone copes with things in their own way, and this is mine.
‘I still talk to him and I miss his knowledge most of all, after the man himself.’ (Another reader, Anne, also kept her husband’s ashes at home, and still talks to them.)
NEVILLE: ‘The ashes of my beloved wife of nearly 60 years are resting in a favourite biscuit tin on her rise and recline chair. Also on the chair are three pictures: our wedding day, my wife in her beloved garden and a picture of the beautiful tree in autumn leaves that we were looking at when she dropped dead . . .
‘So now she is in my company every day and her ashes can be put in my coffin when it is my turn to be cremated and so, in the last words of a lovely poem I found, “we can snuggle up for ever and ever”.’
I’m grateful to everyone. I sent everything to ‘Lynne’, who t ells me she was touched and comforted by all your thoughts.
Bel answers readers’ questions on emotional and relationship problems each week. Write to Bel Mooney, Scottish Daily Mail, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow G2 6DB, or email bel.mooney@ dailymail.co.uk. A pseudonym will be used if you wish. Bel reads all letters but regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.