Ashes in an Aspirin Bottle

@thiscatcollages

Words by Madi Parsley

It was an overcast suffocating day in July as I watched my mom struggle to open an Excedrin bottle. Three weeks prior to this Stacie, my mother, blurted out in the middle of a busy mall that we should “get your dad out of that jar!”  She was referring to my dad’s “urn” aka a white cookie jar embossed with giant letters spelling “STARBUCKS.” I lost my father at age nine to brain cancer. He left behind my mom, my brother and myself to figure out life. 

The cookie jar was my grandfather’s idea after discovering that urns are very expensive. After picking up his cremated son inside a duct-taped cardboard box the coroner handed to him, he stopped by at a Starbucks and found a vessel that was originally made to put biscotti in it and realized it was just big enough for a cremated body, too. I’m sure the capitalist coffee chain was flexible with its intention of what you should put inside the jar.   

I bet you're asking yourself why my grandfather would pick a Starbucks cookie jar to lay his cremated son to rest in? Well, John, my father, loved going to the Starbucks down the street from our house to work or read his twenty something bibles he had collected as he became a more devoted Christian, so much so that everyone who worked or frequented that shop knew him… very well… like, they came to his funeral and made speeches. Most of the memories I have of my dad include him with a coffee in hand that he’d let me take sips from, and now in my twenties I have a full blown coffee addiction. 

My grandfather came home with the STARBUCKS cookie jar and the cardboard box with my father’s ashes. It’s permanently ingrained in my brain the image of the old man ripping open the box then trying to shove the clear plastic bag of ashes into the jar. 

His ashes remained there until the 13th anniversary of his death, I woke up to my mother hovering over me with big eyes saying, “your father is coming with us today,” to which I replied, “are you having an aneurysm?” 

I pulled myself out of bed and walked down the hall to the kitchen because I can’t listen to crazy before I have my coffee. She finally fucking lost it, I thought, and then she started again,

“Madi, I feel I like I’m finally ready to take his ashes out somewhere special. If we’re getting him a new urn we might as well take some of him and bring it with us today.” The damn STARBUCKS cookie jar was sitting on the kitchen table. 

We had the same tradition every July 26th, which is to get far away from our house, pick up shitty Jack-in-the-Box tacos (food that is the physical form of depression) , sit on the beach while talking about death and end the night with a shot of whiskey. That year was no different, except John was coming with us. I assumed he was looking forward to some fresh air after thirteen years. 

I sat at the kitchen table while intently watching my mother try to pry off the lid of the cookie jar urn that required the use of a screwdriver before the lid went flying across the room. Ecclesiastes 3:20 says, “ all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again,” and all I can say is that after the lid popped off and a gray cloud of John filled the room as if he exhaled back from the dead. I’ve never been squeamish until I came face to face with cremains, they look a lot like burnt firewood until you see the bone. But there was my mother, not fazed by any of this, just pure determination to get her late husband out of the damn jar. The new problem was, what were we going to transport him in?

My brother suggested wrapping him in foil, but there was no way in hell I was taking the chance of having it tear a hole and spill it in the car and I didn’t need to inhale small pieces of my father for months to come; there's such a thing as being too close to your family, that’s where I draw the line.  

I rummaged through the cabinets until I found a near empty bottle of Excedrin with two pills left that I swallowed then I handed the bottle to my mom who then carefully dug a spoon I used to eat cereal with to transfer the ash and funnel it into the bottle with an old receipt. 

Hours later, somewhere on the California coast stood my mother, brother, and I breathing in heavy humid air while water receded from our feet. My mom whispered in my ear what to do if she’s fined for pouring something into the ocean. The problem with dumping ashes in the California coast is that there are laws to abide by when it comes to this activity. The EPA doesn’t appreciate people scattering Grandma or Uncle Jim at the shoreline, which is why you must spread them three miles from land. Fun fact though,  the U.S. Government doesn’t consider cremains to be hazardous, so I told my mom half-jokingly, “ just say tell the cop ‘oh no this is  biodegradable, it’s just my husband’s ashes in an aspirin bottle.’” With that, she marched forward and waited for the waves to come back to shore. The water rushed in and without any warning, my mother clumsily submerged the aspirin bottle under the waves several times like she was baptizing it. That’s the best way I can describe what grief feels like. It comes in waves, both small and big, close and far while it fucking submerges you until you find the surface again, and repeats until your own death drowns someone else. 

“You’re not supposed to dunk it!” my brother yelled and my mother ran back looking paranoid. We all took a collective exhale and watched the ocean engulf the sun while I assume my dad floated to Hawaii or Japan.  The day ended with a drink at the same table cremain dust settled earlier, like some sort of last supper I suppose.

John had taken many forms during his life and afterlife. He had been the shape of a man, a husband, a father, a cardboard box, a cookie jar, an aspirin bottle and however the waves now choose to shape him. I started wearing my dad’s wedding rings after that summer because I refused to be held down by his ashes anymore. Now I feel his weight wrapped around my fingers in the form of gold bands. 

Madi Parsley is a journalist from the San Fernando Valley, CA. She received BA in Journalism and English Literature at Cal State Northridge. An intersectional feminist, she focuses her reporting on the sociopolitical issues affecting womyn and communities of color. Her love for feature writing, poetry and visual art has inspired her to create her own print and online platform Drifter Zine, dedicated to showcasing the creative work of San Fernando Valley locals.