You Get a Vial & You Get a Vial & You Get a Vial

Red and I have been married a little over five years and things have been great. We really were made for each other. Despite having moved about a dozen times around three different countries in the short time we have been together, the worst stress we've encountered was when our bedtime routines happened to coincide and I started brushing my teeth a few moments after Red had started.

After a few brief flirtatious smiles in the mirror back and forth, the reality of what was happening came crashing down on us. The unspoken words were instantaneously birthed and started frantically flitting about the tiled room:

"Who's going to brush the longest?"
"Who cares about their dental health more?" 
"First one to stop is disgusting and does not deserve love." 

Today, we won't even enter the same bathroom at the same time. And that works for us.

Despite those occasional moments of crazy, our interactions are typically far from problematic. We work very well together. And we understand each other.

Well…most of the time.

Today, due to a problem we are having with our passports, Red casually mentions, "Well, maybe our new passports not showing up is just God taking care of us because I'm going to be dead in a few days."

Red generally leans toward believing she is currently living her last week on earth. She hasn't been right a single time, but I know she will rub it in my face the first week she is.

Since this is typical of many conversations in our house, I simply replied, "That would be nice to keep us from wasting that money."

This slowly morphed into a conversation about what to do if one of us did kick the bucket. And living in a foreign country, there is much to consider.

• Does the body get shipped back to the States? 
• Is there a need to fly home for some sort of service or does the surviving spouse just make a phone call to their in-laws to give the news?
• If I do have to send my wife's body back, should I pay for the exorbitant shipping or could I just buy an extra seat on the plane and lug her around myself? 
•  Could I get away with folding her in half into a large suitcase and save the extra seat fee?

This all led to the conversation about how my wife wants to be cremated anyway. So, if I could get that done here before heading to America (or shipping her), the cost consideration completely changes. However, for the first time, I started to consider what I would do with her remains after she's been Thanosed into powder.

Do not read anything into this, but I would not be keeping the ashes or displaying them anywhere in the house. This has nothing to do with how I feel about my wife. It is just not me. I also would not have an internment somewhere to be able to go visit and Red's only wishes are that they should go to whoever might want them. This made me realize something I had never considered. Ashes are not like a whole body. There is no law that says they all have to go to one place. They can be split up and sent to as many different places as you want.

OK. Who wanted the dark meat?

This means that anyone who wants a piece can have one. I got online to see how much ash a human body produces and found a formula that told me that my wife would break down into a little over half a gallon of ash. Specifically, between 10 and 11 cups. You can find anything on the internet.

This means I could send a cup to each of her four siblings, a double portion to her parents and still have over four cups left to sprinkle a little into my pancake mix each morning.

Or…I could separate them into much smaller portions and place them in decorative vials to be worn as pendants or carried in the pocket. And before you think this is strange, there is already a market for this.

Click here to buy these in a variety of styles

Little birdseed packets are often handed to people as they exit a wedding to throw at the happy new couple as they leave the service. These Red ash-filled vials could be handed to the visitors as they leave the funeral. The main difference is these can be thrown at anyone since the person of honor will not be making an appearance.

Or…I could sell and ship them to her hundreds of cousins. (She has a very fertile family.) I could even start various bidding wars for family members to prove how much they loved her. The more they're willing to pay, the more Red's memory is honored.

I think I'm onto something. I'm going to start a GoFundMe page to get money for vials.