I had a request from a family to do the funeral of their mother, who had passed away having suffered from Alzheimer’s. Again, this was a really lovely family. Gentle with each other, empathetic to each other’s loss and somewhat received that their mother’s suffering had come to an end.

On the day of the funeral, the daughter took me aside to give me some inside information. She told me that when we would get to the cemetery plot I would see the grave marker in place with her Mom and Dad’s name on it. However, she said, ” just in case someone says something, you should know that my Dad is not buried there”.

She smiled and went on, “you see when my Dad died, he was cremated and his remains were in an urn at the family home. My Mom was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and one day when she was on her own, she took the urn and a shovel and went to the local park, which is enormous, and buried my Dad someone in the park. She couldn’t remember where and after an exhaustive search they could not find where she had been”.

Indeed when we got to the grave there was the marker and Mom was laid to rest there. One day someone may find her husband but for the time being he’s in a park somewhere.

So if you’re going to the park and you think you see an urn sticking up out of the ground you should probably call the police.