Finding Needles

I'm not sure where she got the idea to have her cremated remains inserted into a firework and launched towards the heavens, but my mother-in-law was very excited when she told us that was what she wanted us to do with her body after she died. 

That was about five years ago, and to be honest I thought it was going to be a fun, but passing thought. I was wrong. Deb never lost her enthusiasm for lighting up the night sky. 

The problem we faced when she died in July was how were we supposed to do it? Yes, she had already reached stage four lung cancer when she found out she was sick, and we all knew where her road was leading her, but the chemo treatments were doing their job. She was in the hospital for an infection when her brain began to hemorrhage. Her death was truly unexpected. 

Because it was so unexpected, no one had ever asked Deb how she had planned to get herself inside a July rocket. Seriously, how do you start that conversation when your mom is fighting nausea tooth and nail from the confines of a hospital bed? We didn't.

After Deb's funeral, the girls started digging through their mom's files looking for something pertaining to a firework company. They found nothing. Funeral file? Nope. Cremation instructions? Again, negative. I'm not sure how she noticed it, but Daphne spied this short notation in a small notebook, "800-648-3890 J&M".  A Google search lead to J&M Displays. Daphne gave them a call, and she was told, "Yep, we can do that. We do funeral shells." Well, all right. Not only is this going to be possible (and legal), there even was a legitimate name for the service. Funeral Shells.

The next event J&M was working was the National Balloon Classic in Indianola, Iowa. We decided to go with their second show on August 3. On that day in the early afternoon, Daphne and Phaedra drove to Indianola and through a huge, open field to meet with Jason from J&M.

Here's the funeral shell (see, it even says so on the label). It's important to note that this is a five inch shell, and that it's the only shell of this size that was going into the display on Saturday night.

The top of the funeral shell screws open, and the cremains can be poured in.

Since the shell was covered in brown paper, each girl took the opportunity to write an inscription to their mom.

Daphne wired the shell.

Phaedra placed the shell in the launching tube.

The final step was connect the red and black wires to the launching cart. The gals shared connecting duties. 

Here's Deb armed and dangerous.

We got to the Balloon Classic around 6:30. Charlotte was pretty impressed with the huge balloon launch, but she was more excited about playing in the inflatable bounce house. 

Around 9:00 Daph and Phaedra left to meet up with Jason again.  J&M was going to let them both push the button that launched their mother's shell. That's is very cool. (I have to mention that Daphne was so impressed with how nice everyone from J&M was.) 

If you're wondering how everyone else was going to know which firework was Deb's, you're not alone. Jason's solution was to shoot off a "cake", and then pause for ten seconds before the flip the switch. Although they didn't know it, a crowd of a few thousand people were about to attend my mother-in-law's second funeral.

Here's a video of the event given to us by a good friend. The pause begins at the 30 second mark, and Deb comes on ten seconds later.

You might think this story ends with a boom and a flash and a puff of smoke, but it doesn't.

After the display ended, Daphne and Phaedra returned to our camp of chairs and blankets flush from the excitement of standing beneath an explosive umbrella of fire and sparks. As the family was hugging and wiping away tears, the lights across the field were being extinguished. Then a figure appeared out of the dark with hands full.

It was Jason, "I found your mom's shell. I thought you might like to have it." We knew he found the right shell. Like I said earlier, it was the only five inch one used that night.

The shell's case was split into two equal parts, like the last slice of dessert two sisters are forced to share.

I would think finding just one half of this shell in the light of day would be quite a feat, but finding both sides in the pitch dark? How does that happen?

But then again, I don't know how Jason even found us. I wasn't joking when I said there were thousands of people there. How do you walk across an open field in the ink of night, and within minutes find the right group of people who are folding up blankets and chairs like hundreds of others? How does that happen?

Drawers and drawers of files. Acres and acres of field. Hills and hills of people.

So many haystacks.

You'd have to have an angel on your shoulder to successfully navigate them all...