Finding the Perfect Urn for My Dad on the Internet
Math and numbers have never found a home in my head. I get lost trying to follow their lead. I’ve had to learn an equation recently: 1 pound of person = 1 inch of cremation ash. In order to split my dad’s ashes with my brother, I need to look for an urn that can hold between 60-80 cubic inches.
60-80 cubic inches = 60 - 80 pounds x 2 = 120 - 160 pounds
I remember my dad being tall. I haven’t seen him in 19 years though, so maybe I’m only seeing through the eyes of a child. I know he was thin, but I can’t imagine that I currently weigh as much as my dad did when he died.
___STEADY_PAYWALL___
2001 - 1957
The year my dad died and the year he was born. They are backwards because when I was 18 the first tattoos I got were of sparrows with these dates on the inside of each of my arms. I was too nervous to have real conversations with the tattoo artist and he put the dates on the wrong arms. I didn’t say anything, but they’ve always embarrassed me. I often lose track of his birth year and how old he was and when his birthday was and the day he died.
L x W x H (in inches) = cubic inches
My dad has lived in a silver colored urn at the bottom of my mom’s TV entertainment center (which was made by one of her other former boyfriends) for at least 12 years. I recently bought my first home with my husband, and we are turning what was a child’s room into an extra room/office/chill zone for me. Now that I have this stable space for me and my life, I want my dad to be here too, but he has to match the decor.
We painted the walls with “410-2DB Sand Dunes” from Dutch Boy; there are pops of copper, rose gold, and other metallics; whites, grays, and wood in the furniture. I picture my dad chilling in a piece of pottery because maybe I’m eclectic and artistic. Using the cubic inches formula I found on Google after searching “how to figure out cubic inches”, I have started my overly intense search for pottery pieces big enough to hold my dad. But riddle me this: length x width x height .. all the vase shaped objects I find only tell me width and height, and now I’m drawing diagrams and using a calculator and asking my husband to come upstairs and listen to me talk this out while he gets annoyed and looks at his phone. He says it's a cylinder. I need a new formula.
V=πr2h
The internet says it is legal to keep ashes in any sort of vessel, and because I might be eclectic and artistic, I turned to Etsy and Instagram to search for the perfect ceramic urn. IG led me to some amazing pages filled with ceramic art from all over the world, and I spent about 2 hours every day for 3 days endlessly scrolling, clicking, reading “SOLD OUT, new shop drop soon, subscribe to notifications!”.. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
On Etsy, key words and filtering criteria are vital for this search: modern contemporary (what is the difference between these words?) ceramic vase jar WITH LID. I could find one without a lid and do some more math formulas to find a cork to fit the vessel, but that seems like another ‘path less traveled’ in my mind. Must ship from the US and under $100. I have asked to have my dad for my birthday/Christmas ‘present’, so I can’t wait for it to ship from overseas and I don’t want to pay additional fees. Under $100. I have never experienced an excess of money or stability and get great and unusual amounts of satisfaction withholding from spending, but there is an odd pressure that makes me feel like I shouldn’t be frugal with my dad’s ceramic home.
So far, I have 3 objects on Etsy that could be contenders to hold my dad. A pinkish speckled ‘cookie jar’, a yellow ‘fermentation jar’ (dishwasher and microwave safe), and a white and gold ‘large gilded jar’. All of which were on sale at the time of clicking the ‘heart’ button to save to my favorites, but upon review today are back to full price. I’m finding that the term ‘large’ is subjective in the ceramics world, but through using the google sourced formula for the volume of a cylinder, all 3 options seem acceptable.
48 inches
I want to get 3 wood floating shelves on a small wall in my room that measures 48 inches, underneath which I have a small futon that will only fit one small human (me, my friend, Liz, or my 6 year old niece). My dad can hang out on one of those shelves admiring the room and life I’ve created and finally getting some time away from the TV and my mom -- who he was only married to for maybe 3 years.. another number I’ve not committed to memory (and can’t Google).
I’m concerned that the wall for the shelves won’t hold heavy shelves with objects and my dad (remembers to Google: “how heavy are 60-80 cubic inches of cremation ash + a modern contemporary cookie jar with lid?”) and my 6”5’, devil’s advocate, hypothetical, 10 steps down the road husband thinks that someone could knock my dad over if they are sleeping under the shelves. A quirky indie dramedy waiting to happen.
147, 335, 281 miles
When I was 8, my mom remarried to a man who would be her husband for 3 very long and short years. In those years, we moved 147 miles away from my dad to a tiny rural town in Central Wisconsin. Within a year and a half, we moved another 335 miles away to a tiny farm town in Central Michigan. A year later, she would be divorced again, and we would move 281 miles back ‘home’ with nowhere to stay, but at least closer to my dad. I saw him once that summer.
Once we found an apartment and were unpacking our stuff, we got a phone call on the corded house phone in the kitchen. A family friend quickly took my brother and I away to get McDonald’s for lunch (yay! nuggets please!). When we came back my mom told me that my dad died in his sleep. The funeral was on my first day of 6th grade at a new school. No one really acknowledged that when I came to school on the 2nd day as a new student, so I didn’t either.
7.5 x 7 x 7 @ $66.95
“Keep your cookies (or anything else!) in style with this gorgeous slip-cast handmade ceramic orb / round lidded jar with pink speckle glaze on the outside and dark brown glaze on the inside. This beautiful and unique item measures ~ 7.5 x 7 x 7 (lid on)” SOLD. I hope the seller doesn’t mind the liberty at which I am taking the “or anything else!” prompt and is equally unbothered by my 5 star review that clearly states that the new purpose for this “vintage 1980s” orb is my dad’s cremains.
Nearly 20 years of grief funneled into a spiral of mathematical equations has brought me closer to my dad than ever before. As I await the tracking number to fixate on, I’m sad and excited and nervous and overwhelmed to bring 60 - 80 cubic inches of him into my home and life forever.
Words: Samantha Clausen-Ruppert (written December 2020)
