In a huge contrast to Dan’s casket, my precious little Megs’s casket was so very, very tiny that she would easily fit in the same plot as Freddie and Ellie.
We loaded up the car with the memorial headstones and caskets as well as some coloured slate chippings to cover Dan’s new plot after he had been interred.
When we arrived at the crematorium we had a brief meeting with a very nice lady in order to complete the relevant paperwork for Dan’s new plot, then she took us over to the cemetery to chose our plot. Luckily they had one available next to the plot where Ellie was already buried, so naturally we chose that plot. Next the gardeners, who were both very nice and helpful, set to work digging three holes for the caskets. It was a lovely hot sunny day with bright sunshine and a cloudless blue sky, which helped to make the whole sad event more bearable. It was less welcome for the gardeners however, as they both got very hot digging away at the very hard ground.
When they had finished we laid the caskets in their respective locations and took some final photos before the gardeners covered them up. We used the bag of purple slate chippings to cover Dan’s grave and then the final act was to set the three headstones over their respective burial locations. I had thought about bringing some plants to put on the graves, but I had tried that several times before both on Cleo and Ben’s grave and Ellie’s grave as well. As the soil is so poor and the pet cemetery is next to an ex-household waste dump site nothing seems to survive. I had tried everything from Sempervivum and Alpines to Heather, all very hardy plants, to no avail. Nothing had survived. I consoled myself with the knowledge that all my children were commemorated with a lovely headstone each, which celebrated their lives and individual personalities as well as detailing my words of loss and love for each of them. These would far outlive any kind of floral display for many decades to come.