At home at last

By: Hege Marie on 4:19 PM

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Rob and me agreed right away that we don't want a grave for Zoe and Kian, but rather have them cremated so that we can have them at home with us as long as we wish. Since none of us is actually from Montreal either it just didn't feel right to bury them here. We don't even know if we will stay here, and we don't want to feel tied to this city because of our babies grave site.

Personally I also find that there is something extremely sad and gloomy about leaving your loved ones in a dark hole in the ground. When we buried my grandmother a few years back both me and my mom heard her voice crying 'don't leave me here alone in the dark'. Just your imagination you may say, it's just their dead remains and not their soul, and I agree, but that doesn't change how I feel.

We were looking at a lot of different miniature urns for them at the funeral home, but none of them really 'spoke to me'. While sitting here one night in deep thought I suddenly got this wild idea.

When we were returning from our vacation in Norway we decided to upgrade our plane tickets to first class. My back was killing me and the price wasn't too bad, besides none of us ever flied first class before, and we figured it would be our last trip for quite some time and that we deserved a little extra pampering.


KLM gives their first class passengers small dutch porcelain houses with liquor inside, and I know a few people who collect them as they are part of a series of unique collectables. To us they are part of our memory from Zoe and Kian's very first journey and their visit in Norway. Besides, what better symbol than a house, a home for them. So I thought maybe we could use them for their ashes.

I suggested it to Rob, and he loved the idea too. It may seem a bit unconventional or even tacky, but to us it just clicked, it was so right and so unique, just like our babies. So we emptied them, cleaned them and dried them and painted over the KLM logo on the back where their names will go, and today we went to the funeral home to bring their ashes home in their new little houses. I also got a nice silver heart pendant with a tiny bit of each of their ashes to carry close to my heart at all times.

On our way home, while sitting on a bench outside the funeral home waiting for a taxi, I was holding them both in my hands, and it felt like the houses were radiating heat. I have a very dominant left brain, so I know it was because of the way the sun and shadows just happened to light up my hands, but the part of me that doesn't believe in coincidences found some comfort in it. As sad as I felt, trying not to cry and attract too much attention from people passing, it made me feel a sort of presence, as if their spirits were trying to tell me something, and it felt good.

When the time is right, we want to take them back to Norway and scatter their ashes at Verdens Ende (the end of the world) where Rob took our first belly picture. What better place could there possibly be for us to find closure, when we are ready.

The End of the World