Am I a pearl clutcher?

[Pawse]

I’m genuinely interested whether I’m being unreasonable in being completely shocked by what I witnessed today.

I’m away with my family on a European beach holiday and we were on one of those Cruise and Swim trips that you can take in most touristy places.

We were at the first stop at a beautiful clear blue lagoon. The water was shallow, full of fish and an idyllic place for snorkelling.

Most of the adults and kids jumped in and were having a great time splashing about and snorkelling. I didn’t go in as I was taking pictures, but really it was too bloody cold for me.

Anyway, a woman clutching a jam jar with a ribbon around it, started performance crying. I thought the jar had some fine dirty looking sand in it. It was only 1/4 full.

She started sniffing and dabbing her eyes saying “Goodbye Martin.” Then her male partner/friend jumped in the water. She then passed the jam jar to her male friend and said “This is what Martin would have wanted,” at which point I realised in horror that the “sand” was actually some poor bloke’s ashes.

I expected the male friend to at least swim to the other side of the boat away from the main groups of swimming families, but he just swam to the edge of them. I was desperately trying to see where my kids were so didn’t actually see him “scatter” them, luckily my kids were the other side of the main groups.

The woman was comforted by a female friend when the male friend came back onboard. It all happened so quickly.

So am I being unreasonable to think when you scatter someone’s ashes at sea you do it discreetly on the edge of a quiet beach or empty them (again discreetly) at the back of a boat when it’s moving. Or even hire a bloody motorboat and do it privately and with dignity NOT do it beside families who are swimming and enjoying a lovely holiday day out.

I am still absolutely flabbergasted, but maybe I’m a pearl clutcher and just didn’t know it!

Presumably you were only witness to this because you stayed on the boat. Maybe there will be another post later from a poor lady trying to scatter ashes discretely but there was a woman with a camera near by staring throughout and not giving her any privacy.

You sound quite mean. Performance crying?

a quarter of a jar of ashes isn’t going to even be noticed.

You think you’re really quite clever and funny writing this don’t you

Oh my God, this made me laugh more than it should have🤣🤣

I think it was a bit unusual OP, but ultimately harmless. And I agree with pp’s that YABU for saying she was performance crying. You don’t know her or how she usually cries. Such an unpleasant little remark.

I’m presuming that those swimming will have probably already swam through someone’s bodily fluids without adding a 10th of Martin into the mix

I’m with you OP. Scatter where people aren’t going to get a gob full of Martin. Uncouth.

If it was a jam jar I think Martin was most likely a cat or something!

What’s all this talk of gravitas and dignity. Martin is dead. He doesn’t give a fuck. All these ‘ceremonies’ are for the living - and this is obviously what they wanted to do.

Well unless its a Turkish Van, its gonna HATE that!

Was someone recording it? It sounds very performative.

Apparently, we humans are rattling with microplastics and it can accumulate in bone tissue. That might bother me a bit, but it's unlikely that Martin will significantly add to what's already in the sea. I agree with a pp who pointed to sewage and chemicals as a bigger issue than human ashes.

I agree with you- gross! Although I find public pools and the sea gross to swim in and get in either next to never! I wouldn’t fancy abit of martins fingernail inadvertently finding its way into my gob

Yes, you are a pearl clutcher.
Show some respect for people who are grieving.

YANBU or a pearl clutcher OP.

It wasn’t the time or place to scatter someone’s ashes. So because of that, the performance crying I can believe.

The amount of posters berating you for your choice of words and not the subject matter is eye rolling to say the least!

Human ashes are just ashes, harmless. But this has just reminded me of the excellent Donny's ashes scene in The Big Lebowski. It's on YouTube, if anyone cares.

Your posts sound like the woman’s ease with grieving publicly has made you feel uncomfortable somehow. ‘Performative crying’ etc. If that’s the case, I get it, I get uncomfortable seeing people open enough to cry in work or just in front of others. I know that’s a me issue, not a them issue, though.

Sounds like it was a tiny amount of ashes, was hardly going to get swallowed by people on the trip and that lady was obviously comfortable showing her emotions in public (so I can be comfortable ignoring them and leaving her to it). I feel like this is a total non-issue, OP.

Sure you weren’t accidentally an extra in White Lotus?

My dad died last year, and we were told by the undertaker that a human's ashes weigh approximately the same as their birth weight. I have heard several accounts from people trying to scatter their loved one's ashes that it is more difficult than you would imagine, as in they can blow back in your face and don't actually waft away as you might imagine.
I only add this for context!

Most of the ash is wood from the coffin. It doesn’t sound like the most spiritual experience, but it certainly isn’t a hygiene problem..

'Performance crying' is very unkind in the circumstances.

I think some people are simply stupid. We will be scattering ashes in a public park in July. The park has regulations and one is to scatter away from people who are spending time at the park. They have a new scattering area, and we will go do it there.

welcome to the club, and yes you are a pearl clutcher

There’s more gross things to get a gob full of in the sea than Martin.

Having scattered ashes of various people in various locations in the past... its an honour to do it, often weirdly a total anti-climax, and a totally inert lumpy dust. I dont understand why you'd ge concerned about someone coming into contact with it. Particularly in the sea - it would be a teensy fleck at the m9st, in an absolute most bizarre set of coincidences.
Think how many fishes have pissed in the ocean. Or dinosaurs. Or whatever. Gen the poops and corpses. The odd cremated ashes is irrelevant ... It's not hygienic anyway.

Whoever was scattering the ashes probably had ages to think about how it would be - would they cry? Say something? Of course it's a bit false and not spontaneous. I imagine they wanted Martin to be somewhere they shared happy memories of playing about in the water somewhere beautiful.

I was amazed at the weight of OH's ashes, we see people on TV blissfully holding an urn in one hand to sprinkle ashes, no way could I have done that!

Scattering ashes is never as dignified as it should be in my experience. When DB and I scattered our Dad I tried to make it a respectful occasion and read a poem, but my brother forgot to properly check the wind direction and got some in his eye. And there was so much - it looked like a building site covered in grey sand by the time we’d finished - they’re actually quite heavy and don’t naturally “scatter” which we hadn’t realized. Luckily our dad would have found it completely hilarious which made it a bit better.