Nothing like typing in a title for a blog post called “A Trip to the Mortuary to Pick up the Boys.” That’s enough to make you want to stop reading right now. So stop, if you want. To be honest, I’m not really writing for you anyway. I mean, if you get something out of it, that’s great. But much of the recent content of this blog is pretty selfish – this is for me. This is my way of processing a terribly shitty* event that happened almost two months ago.
About a month ago, we went back up to the hospital to meet with the social worker who saw us after Micah and Judah died. She was a wonderful woman who pointed us to some great resources, and also was appropriately concerned with how we were doing and handling all of what had happened. She had gotten the photos the nurse took of Micah and Judah and wanted to get them to us. So we met with her and had a good conversation. Then, it was off to Errand #2 of that day: off to the mortuary.
I’ve been in mortuaries before – we’ve had deaths in our family over the years, and so being in mortuaries, seeing open-casket viewings…these are things I’m used to. But there was something about being led inside, and then sitting down at the desk, across from the mortuary guy, discussing the remains of our 20-week infant boys, that was just messed up.**
And then he just handed us the little cardboard boxes. That was it. Just two little boxes. Two lives began, were in the process of being created and developing, and then they end up tossed into two tiny, little cardboard boxes. And we have the permits to prove it. Yes, that’s right. You need a permit. I guess it makes sense – but it was something I’d never thought of before. You need a permit to be able to keep human remains on your property. So we have permits for Micah and Judah.
After he gave us the boxes, he led us past the room full of caskets and into the room with all of the urns. We flipped through page after page of gaudy, expensive, ornate “infant urns” and couldn’t see anything that looked even remotely like what we would want to have. So we said thanks, left and then drove home. Sarah and I, and the remains of our two twin boys, boys who we only got to know for about one hour, their remains in little white cardboard boxes.
*I’m pretty convinced that if I wasn’t almost complete with my ordination process, and if I wasn’t currently serving a church as a youth minister, the amount of expletives on this site would be much higher. So just know that you’re getting a filtered version of what goes through my mind.
**This is just another example of a time when I was thinking of an entirely different phrase…
Tess says
The strange ordinariness of this collection of their remains and your account of it is incredibly touching. And the parallel with a world dashing down the home strait to Christmas Day is striking. So just wanted to say I’ve been thinking a lot about you and your family, including the boys.
renee says
ashe, aho, namaste, shalom, amen, salaam, blessed be. I grieve alongside you as your friend and sister in the web of existence.
Mike Stavlund says
Thanks for posting this, Adam.
I hear you on the unacceptability of commercial vessels for our loved ones. We ended up buying a real wooden casket for our son from some Trappist monks in Indiana. And we asked a friend who is a potter to make us an urn. You might not know any artists who you could ask, but I’m sure being able to tell your story to someone and to have them make two pieces for you– knowing your story– would create more loving and personal vessels.
I’m still sitting with you and Sarah in your loss. Shalom.
Mike
Abigail Benjamin says
Infant death is so hard. The first thing I thought when I looked at the picture without reading the caption is “ohh, he’s got something official with his son’s name on it.” I kept my son’s cemetery plot permits neatly filed in a drawer because its got his name on it, there were so few marks in black and white which were proof of his brief time on earth.
I found the funeral to be extremely healing for my husband and myself. We picked a cemetery near my grandfather’s house that had no previous attachment to us. There was a special place set aside to bury children. Everyone in this section died at less than a year.
I found it really healing to pray by my son’s grave site. At first, I was really mad. I’d look around at all the baby grave sites and think “This is not the play group that I wanted you to have!” But within a couple of months, I felt much better. I liked coming to pray with him in a special outdoor place and his burial with other children made me stop feeling so alone.