Traveling with His Ashes

Day1249.

Luke was cremated in Boston, where he died.

Two days later I am at Boston airport, London bound, for his UK memorial.

His ashes are in our carry on. I am a wreck, mute, anxious, disorientated, lost.

Stuck in an airport, the chain smoking that kept me going was taken from me. The panic attacks rising one after the other, like contractions.

As we check in my sister sees my distress and presses some coins into my palm. I fiddle with them constantly, soothing myself.

I fly a lot. I know this airport well. I travelled through it every month when George was at school in Maine and later more often when Luke was in therapeutic boarding school. The TSA are brusque and rude. They always were.

My family load our carry-on on the belt for X-ray, my coins are gently removed from my hands and we pass through scanning. I am at sea without my emotional support coins.

I am pulled aside for a pat down. I raise my arms and breathe deeply, my eyes fixed on the bag containing my boy’s barely cooled ashes proceeding through the X-ray machine.

I have a fantasy that the X-ray monitor will reveal Luke’s smiling face and jazz hands, that I will see him somehow through the magic of the rays. I don’t want to miss it. I can’t miss it.

“Lady! Turn around!” “Lady! Turn around!” The TSA are shouting at me.

I don’t turn around. I explain gently but firmly that I am happy to be patted down but that I need to face this way, I need to watch my son’s ashes come through the X-ray machine. They do not listen.

“Lady! Turn around!”

One again, I explain, without turning, why I need to face this way. They repeat the order over and over escalating their command and then they grab me, to turn me. I resist. My eyes tracking Luke’s ashes on the luggage belt.

“Lady! Turn around!”

And finally; I crack.

“Why the fuck do I have to turn around!!! ??? You can easily pat me down facing this way!”

“My son is dead!”

“His ashes are in that bag!”

“I have to watch him go through X-ray!”

“I need to see him!”

“I need to see the screen! “

I am screaming, I am sobbing. They are unmoved.

“Nobody’s gonna take his ashes lady!”

They grab my shoulder and try to turn me and I lash out, not turning, eyes fixed on the chaos of bags and shoes on the conveyor belt.

I’ve lost the plot and my arms are flailing as I repeat that I need to watch his ashes come through the X-ray machine and I accidentally swipe the TSA agent in the face. They are cold. They are intent solely on turning me 180º and I won’t be turned. The melee escalates.

My sister, separated by barriers fixes her eyes on mine

“Sheila! Sheila! It’s OK !”

But it’s not. Nothing is OK.

A rude woman pushes past my sister and shoves the crate with Luke in it to one side. I break completely, wailing, but I won’t turn.

The TSA agents finally find reason and pat me down facing the fucking X-ray machine. I am free to go.

I run to the X-ray screen but the moment is gone. It’s too late.

It was my chance to see him again and it is lost.

I repeat the sobbing now as I write.

Those bastards took my chance with their officious, compassionless nonsense and for what? I wasn’t stopping them, or impeding their pat down, I just wanted to keep my gaze on my child as he passed in a tiny box along a conveyor belt in a grey plastic crate and have to chance to see him on the X-ray screen.

They wand his urn. Examined the paperwork.

I stare at it all and wonder how the fuck we got to this.

A battering of memories fall upon me. Memories of the hellos and goodbyes, the reunions and the partings, the hopes and the dreams that this airport had once held for me - and now here he is, my proud, beautiful boy, in my carry-on luggage, reduced to ashes in a tiny wooden box.

My coins are returned to my hands, deranged and unhinged, I walk towards another metal tube prison, as I fly home to London.