On Wednesday, the extended family gathered to bid farewell to my grandma's ashes. It has been one year since her passing. Originally, we had planned on bringing her back to the old country. My uncle, the one who sponsored us, wasn't keen on the idea. He wanted to bury her urn with my grandfather here in Ottawa. He also re-hired the priest, who was at her bedside on the final day, to perform a short ceremony.
My grandma wanted none of this. In fact, given her pragmatic nature, she simply wished to be scattered in a river or lake. Her reasoning was that no one was going to visit anyway. She wasn't wrong as I haven't been to my grandfather's grave in 30 years. None of my cousins have ever been since he was gone before they were born. A few older relatives, like my mom, came by sporadically over the years.
On the walk to the lot, I didn't recognize the location. His small headstone (all that we could afford back then) was hidden among the many larger ones in what once had been empty field back in the day. After the rite, I placed her urn in a prepared "vault box". Other people added flowers inside the container as well. We could have included other mementos but neither my uncle nor my mom, who coordinated with the cemetery staff, had informed us beforehand. The box cover was sealed in place, the ground crew lowered it into the ground, and that was that.
We went for lunch at a nearby Boston Pizza. As a chain restaurant, it had the space for the 18 of us and a choice of menu items. No one had never been to "A Canadian company with an American name founded by a Greek sailor serving Italian food" as was written on the wall. So we started with 3 plates of beef nachos as appetizers. Some shared pizzas with names like The Meateor while the rest chose from the lunch menu various combos of pasta, salad, burgers, and fries. I covered the bill at $469.88 (tax + tip) and we agreed that the food was run-of-the-mill as expected. Some foodie cousins were intrigued to hear about Idriss, which would have been my choice if we didn't have picky eaters. The cousin who recently attended a wedding will be going to another funeral soon. A friend died young but his memorial will be at the decidedly more upscale Harmon's Steakhouse.
