Splitting my mum's ashes

really? Bad juju??

Some people have the empathy of a forgetful goldfish. A grieving poster asks what they should do with regards to their late mothers ashes and pp come on to tell her the process involved in obtaining said ashes really not necessary or relevant.

I'm Catholic and this is the Catholic Church's position too - not to split and not to scatter. They ask for the remains, whether cremated or not, to be interred in a consecrated place.

Lots of people do choose otherwise, but if the deceased person was religious it is something to consider.

I'm very sorry for your loss OP.

it's interesting to hear from a Christian POV

Anglican priest here (haven't read whole thread, so apologies for any repetition).

The term 'scattering' is used by funeral directors, and is unfortunate because, actually, ashes are not supposed to be thrown to the four winds - they should be buried. In church/undertaker speak, 'scattering' ashes means burying them.

Also, the view of the Church is that ashes should not be split: we go through life as whole people, so should remain the same after death.

Could you split them anyway? There's not a thing on earth that could make me cut open that bag.

You're not supposed to scatter them anyway..it comes with a bit of paper thats clear what you can do with them. They're not harmless to the world.

My late mother was vehemently against it after a neighbour was split between her children. I remember her on a rant about her head being in north wales, a leg in a forest in Buxton and a few toes in Essex.
made me laugh at the time, but it was something I hadn’t considered until that point.

after mum died I found her file of Very detailed instructions and it said to bury ashes with dad and do not split.

I personally wouldn’t split them.

This. His choice. Come along or do not come. I wouldn’t be letting him call the shots.

OP may not feel comfortable reading these type of posts fairly soon after bereavement

If you want them spilt it’s a good idea to ask the crem to do it for you. If you are in wales take your own bag as they don’t use plastic.

Nope, the consistency is like sand. The industry refers to it as ashes to gloss over this fact. Most of the body disappears up the chimney as smoke and vapours, but the bigger bones such as pelvis etc are left and crushed up

It depends, I think different place have different grinders or something, as I’ve seen quite a few different consistencies ranging from sand like to more like broken shells in small pieces to larger shards. All of them had a level of finer stuff though, so you’d have some of it just plop down on the ground in a pile and then ash like stuff that was blown about in the wind.

Was your Mum Christian? There are religious beliefs and reasons to not split the ashes

I must admit I would feel a bit uncomfortable splitting them

I think a PP had a good idea - arrange for them to be interned and then you could visit separately. Do you have a Natural Burial ground nearby? It's possible to intern ashes there and it's a lovely setting

You don't say how long you've had her ashes, so I'm going to assume it's been quite recent, and so I'm sorry for your loss.

When we lost our mum, there were 3 offspring involved. One of my sisters wanted to scatter them somewhere special, my other sister wanted to keep them, and me, I didn't want anything to do with them. It wasn't because I didn't love my mum, to the contrary, she was my best friend and I'd never felt so much pain than what I did the day we lost her. Her ashes meant nothing to me.

My sisters and I decided that some of her ashes would be spread at the special place for one sister, and other sister would keep the rest.

Several years after her death we all contributed to a memorial place for her, and other sister had the ashes buried there.

I don't visit, but they do. I don't think there is a wrong or a right, but there is certainly nothing wrong with separating the ashes. The caveat to this I suppose is if you are religious?

again, there might be nothing wrong with splitting ashes for you. OP has already said that she doesn't want to

Did he come to the funeral? I would think that was more important than being there to scatter the ashes. Just scatter them yourself.

Hmm, not sure. I read you can pay a few thousand to have cremated remains turned into a lab grown real diamond. That seems cool and I'd rather any funds were spent on that, over a lavish funeral. I think they take the whole lot.

Sorry OP for the derail.

Nothing wrong with splitting them. We took a few of my Mum's ashes and had them made into a ring for my daughter so that she could feel her Granny was still close to her. We buried a very few in the roots of a tree that was planted in memory of my late sister - and the rest were scattered when it was windy and they did blow out for a distance.

I think they are less harmful for large/established trees

They allow you to scatter yourself so can't manage the spread

I'm just confused by the conflicting ideas, Google does say planting with them is a problem so it might be the fact its on the surface?

Maybe it is carefully managed / very thinly spread. however the science is clear. Google it if you don't believe me.

whether there is bad JuJu in splitting ashes is entirely a personal thing. it is not uncommon to want to keep a person 'as a whole' and it is not uncommon for a person's wishes to be that they are not split into pieces. you have no idea what OPs preferences, or her mother's, are

If this was the case then how come our local crem has a whole woodland area which is thriving despite it being the place that they scatter the ashes?

Was he estranged from her or just you?

If it's just you then it's like you are punishing him now by denying him the chance to say a final goodbye, or to process in his own way.

There's no "bad juju" in splitting ashes. Lots of people request theirs be split to scatter in various important places. My mother has 3 places she wants them scattering and I'd keep some too, as we have done with her parents. We have a little jar of both ashes on the side and my aunt has the same. Some of these were then used in jewelry so we always have a little piece of them with us. The rest we scattered (and, yes, some of that then blew away). So they are well split up, but in a way which gives us all comfort. And that's what they would have wanted.

"she wanted to use some in planting trees. I was uncomfortable with it at first, but soon came to the conclusion that my mum would have wanted us to find comfort, in whichever way. And if that brings my sister comfort, she’d have been ok with it from where we believe she is now"

Another myth I'm afraid. The remains are toxic, with the wrong PH and salts etc that often kill the tree they are planted with, unless they undergo specialist processing by a third party company to treat and neutralise certain compounds.

People pouring ashes in the ground near beauty spots near me are causing problems for the local flora.

I'd bury them as a whole and make it a memorial place.