ashes and angels

My mom's ashes arrived on Saturday, in a cube-shaped USPS Priority Mail box. Mike said he wished they had sent with a signature required b/c it was just left on the porch. I said I was glad they didn't ask for a signature because it's hard to be home to sign for something. I left it on the mail table until Sunday morning even though I could tell what was in there by the shape of the box and the return address.

Early Sunday, before coffee because lots of times when you do things before coffee they hurt less, I took the box to the attic and opened it. And then spend several minutes carefully picking the packing peanuts off and securing them away from the cats. She was packed in an envelope, with newspaper all around. The urn is beautiful. It's green and gold with a shamrock on it. Funny, she was not irish, but her name was. Kathleen Rose. I keep having to correct verb tenses from is to was. I guess a lot of people wanted some of her, because the urn is also tiny. Mike said, I heard that people don't actually come out to be a lot [of ashes]. But I remember Juno's ashes as being pretty significant and she was only like 9-10 pounds.

I feel a compulsion to go over and open the Juno box to heft her ashes.

I ignore the compulsion.

Anyway, mom went back in the shipping box for now so cats won't disturb her. The shrine isn't ready by a long ways.

I had a collage challenge for which the prompt was ANGEL. Here is what came out.