Mama's Got A Brand New Bag

Sometimes things don't work out the way you want them to. When my Mum died in June, I told the funeral director that I wanted a Thumbie. That's a cast pendant of one of your loved one's fingerprints. He assured me that he had taken her fingerprints and that it wouldn't be a problem.

You see, after my Dad died almost six years ago, I went to the same funeral home with my Mum to make arrangements and learned about Thumbies. I wanted one and my mother bought one for me, saying it would be my Dad's last gift to me, making it that much more special. It came just before Christmas and I've worn it ever since. So when my Mum passed, I REPEATEDLY told the funeral diector that I wanted a matching Thumbie. No problem! Except ... he was new to the job and had never ordered one.  And so, he called in an associate who walked him through the process.

And I waited for my Thumbie to arrive.

And I waited. And waited. And waited.

It was supposed to come in 4-6 weeks.

At week 9, I stopped by the funeral home to inquire about my Thumbie.  The very  nice woman at the reception desk asked me to wait while she tried to find out what happened.

So I waited. And waited. And waited.

Sometime later, the woman (quite sheepishly) approached me and and said, "We can't find a record of the order."  Uh-oh!  She said, "We'll contact you as soon as we have any information." I took that to mean that the order had never been placed. I wasn't happy but, hey, mistakes happen.  So I went home to await a call.

The call came the next morning, and not from the young funeral director I had dealt with, but the Big Guy in charge who apologized profusely. Not only had the order NOT been made, but they could not find my mother's fingerprints--no matter where they looked. There was to be no Thumbie.

I cried.

The New Comer Manager, John, very kindly offered me a replacement piece of jewelry.  This was to be a piece of jewelry that would hold a tiny portion of my Mum's cremains.

Mum wouldn't be Mum without her glasses.

So a few days later, I grabbed my Mum from off the entertainment center in my living room where her ashes had been residing, packed her off in the passenger seat of my mini van, and she rode shotgun for her second trip to the funeral home this summer.  On the way, I told her all about the changes in our little suburb.  (Holy cow, there've been a lot of them in just a short span of time.)

John wasn't at the home, but the woman I'd spoken to the week before sat me down in the same room where Mum and I had made my Dad's arrangements and let me pick out a piece of jewelry.  It was a toss up between a dragonfly (my Mum had a pretty dragonfly pin that she wore on her favorite sweater) or a hummingbird.  (Every summer she hung a hummingbird feeder and delighted in watching those tiny birds have dogfights over who got the nectar.)  Since a dragonfly is a bug, and I'm not really a bug fan, I chose the hummingbird.

They took some of Mum's cremains and said the hummingbird would arrive within the week.  When they returned Mum to me, they'd put her "temporary" box (my brother is going to make a more permanent box for me for Christmas) inside a purple velveteen bag.  I laughed when I saw it, and told the woman, "Hey, Mama's got a brand new bag."  (I think she may have been too young to remember the song Papa's Got A Brand New Bag.)  So, Mum rode shotgun all the way home, wearing her new "dress."  (And I kept singing over and over again that phrase from the song Try A Little Tenderness.  "Women do get weary ... wearing the same old shabby dress."  (My Dad used to always call out "then buy her a new shabby dress" which always made me laugh.))

Less than a week later, the hummingbird arrived.  John called and asked me to bring Mum back because they had more cremains than they needed.  So, back in the velveteen bag she went, she rode shotgun again for her third trip in less than three months to the funeral home.

John and the whole staff at New Comer have always been very kind. Not only didn't they charge me for the Thumbie, they credited my brother's credit card, and gave me the hummingbird for free.  I'm impressed by their integrity. They could have just lied and said, "Oh, we found her fingerprints" and faked a Thumbie, but they didn't.  And they made it right.

The Thumbie is approximately the same size as a dime.

 Of course ... maybe I should have gone for the dragonfly after all.  Sometimes Mr. Hummingbird's wings jab me in the throat.  Mum's neighbor, Amy, said, "I'll bet your Mom's trying to get your attention."  My Mum would never hurt me, but I laughed at the idea, and now if the wings jab me I said, "Okay, what do you want me to do, Mum?"

So, Mum and Dad are together again on my entertainment center.  It would be much better if they were really here, of course, but thanks to my Thumbie and hummingbird charm, they're close to my heart every day.

Dad didn't want to be left out of the story.