I thought I would never be able to let his body go, but there came a time when it was clear. The funeral director said I would know when it was time to say goodbye and give the go-ahead for the cremation. I didn’t expect to see them for that long, and it was comforting. It had been a very dry summer, and the ground was hard.
For months afterward, I could see remnants of ashes when I visited. We scattered some of the ashes at a tree in a park that Henry loved. While I didn’t do that with Henry’s ashes, I understood her impulse completely. We move forward with it.” At one point, she shares that she licked her hands clean after scattering her husband’s ashes, because she was afraid of losing more than she had already. Shortly after Henry passed, I listened to an excellent Ted Talk by author and podcaster Nora McInerny called “We don’t move on from grief. Will I keep them forever? I don’t know. But any part of Henry in any form - be it hair, teeth, runny nose tissues - is precious right now. I would wipe Henry’s nose while I sat with his body, and I kept some of the tissues. They are now in a drawer in my dresser. There’s something I never thought I would write in an essay, but here we are. I hadn’t had reason to think about this before, but of course bodies leak fluid. It was so hard to leave, but we also have a younger son, Theo, who needed me, and he was in the forefront of my mind as well.Īs I sat with Henry, I noticed that his nose was running. Each time I went I would stay for about an hour, then leave the room and head to the front door of the funeral home before turning back for one last goodbye. I would wake up feeling anxious to see him. That period of my life is a blur, but those hours with Henry’s body are vivid in my mind. “Who Let the Dogs Out” and a variety of Katy Perry and Lizzo songs felt disjointed … and at the same time, perfectly right in the little room where I sat with him. I sang some of his favorite songs and played others on my phone. I’d push the buttons on the toys and listen to the sounds, which I had heard so many times when he had pushed them. I brought a different assortment of books and toys each time. They would have him ready for me, and I’d go into the room and cry, stroke his hair and face and rest my head next to his. The people who worked at the funeral home - two of the kindest people I’ve ever met - said I could come see Henry’s body in the days leading up to the cremation. I went to sit with him every day for a week. But without even realizing what I was doing, I created one last routine for us.
And then he died, and so much of my routine went out the window. We almost didn’t go, as I thought, “How the hell am I going to do this?” But then I thought, “How can I deprive him of the chance to go to a birthday party?” I carried him myself through the maze his smiles were the best thank you I have ever received.Įver since Henry was born, I had clung to routine and schedules to feel a sense of control over a situation that really couldn’t be controlled. My crowning achievement of this was at a birthday party he went to at an indoor play facility. How many times had I carried him in his life? Hundreds? Thousands? He was almost like an appendage to me we were physically intertwined due to his disability and him needing me to move him around, to be his legs. It was the last time I would ever carry my beautiful Henry. That evening when the people from the funeral home came to get his body, I carried him to the car. I chose one of his softest, coziest ones. I put shorts on him, and a T-shirt out of habit. As long as he remained a physical presence on this Earth, I wanted to be with him. The photo brought me back to sitting with our son Henry’s body after he died. When I look at that photo of the dad in Turkey, I am reminded that the innate desire to have physical contact with your child is universal from the moment they are born - and if they tragically die before you do, when they are dead as well.
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