02/13/2026
Spent a few hours at Emory's Winship Cancer Center today, an appointment made possible by my aunt. Then spent the rest of the day with her.
My father was her only sibling and they were lifelong best friends. He died unexpectedly when I was 22. But I grew up without really knowing her or my cousins because of my parents' divorce when I was an infant.
One of the unexpected blessings of this diagnosis is that I am starting to have family on my father's side. Love that was never experienced because I didn't know it was possible.
Over Panera - her, Baked Potato soup, me, toasted Frontega Chicken sandwich - she described all of the many generations of our family that have been buried in the same beautiful, natural cemetery.
My father's ashes were spread there. Although this is the first I knew of it.
There was a dispute when he died.
His mother wanted him to be buried with the family. His will specifically stated he wanted to be cremated and his remains as far away from his mother as possible.
As his only child, the funeral home called me to sign off on his cremation.
I went to Charleston, in full 22 year old deer-in-headlights shock.
I remember specifically choosing a beautiful sleeveless white lace pantsuit.
My own way of trying to push back on the idea of wearing black and being cloaked in darkness when that was not at all who Daddy was.
I remember arriving at the funeral home.
I remember the floor tiles while I followed the funeral director.
I remember looking at the desk through tunnel vision.
This is the desk.
And these are the papers.
I am here.
And this is why.
I am the only person who can fulfill his final wishes.
Here is the desk.
And the paperwork.
Here is the pen.
To do the last that anyone can do for him.
Which is mine alone to do.
Then I'm reading.
It is possible that in the oven some of his cremains may, unavoidably, be mixed with the body before his.
His cremains may include bone fragments, teeth, plates.
His teeth.
His bones.
His ashes mixed unavoidably with the body before his.
Then I'm on the ceiling, looking down at myself in my beautiful white lace protest pantsuit, signing the papers.
The funeral director divined from her phone call to me that I wasn't there when he passed and is insistent that seeing his body will help me have "closure."
In hindsight, it's giving CEU requirements.
I've signed the paperwork for him to be cremated.
I'm freezing.
Dressed for June in a building whose thermostat has made it late February/early March.
She tries to prepare me for what I am about to see.
"Your father was brought here directly from the hospital. He is still in his hospital gown. Because there was uncertainty, he was not embalmed. That has affected his appearance."
"He's bloated from decomp." I say flatly. Already experienced with trauma and death.
"Yes!" she says enthusiastically, as if I am very, very bright for my age.
Unsurprisingly, seeing the bloated decomposing body of my father, in his hospital gown, in the cardboard box he would wear into the oven, did not give me closure or peace.
Conceptually and therapeutically, I don't believe in closure.
If the relationship was healthy and loving, you don't need "closure."
You know in your bones that they loved you and that they know you loved them.
There is grief and heartbreak over losing them but you know you're solid, the love you have for each other is grounded in something deeper than needing to see their co**se in a hospital gown in a cardboard box they wear into an oven to know exactly what you've lost.
And if you don't feel that overwhelming grief, if you haven't had that feeling of connection, communication and resolution, if that feeling hasn't already happened before the end, then seeking "closure" won't help.
By that point, you're tilting at windmills.
It is what it is, and it was what it was.
Mental health is a constant commitment to facing reality.
Brutal as it often is.
She has eaten her Panera Baked Potato soup, and I've eaten my toasted Frontega Chicken sandwich.
She asks what my plans are for my burial if I die.
I say I want my body to be harvested for organs to help others and then given to science for research and teaching purposes.
Whatever is left will be cremated and I want those ashes scattered over the farm.
She says, "I know that you love your farm and your therapy horses and your therapy program. But would you please consider holding some of your ashes back to be scattered with our family?"
This has to be one of the most intimate things anyone has ever asked of me.
It is an exquisite expression of love from family I never knew I had.
