Why a coffee tin?

My husband, Brian, passed away in December 2019.  While he was still living, and while we were able to still communicate, we had a lot of tough conversations.  One conversation was about what to do with his body after he passed.

Brian knew he wanted to be cremated, but he didn’t know what he wanted done with his ashes.  Should we spread them somewhere?  No, that didn’t appeal to him.  Should we bury them or put them in a columbarium (a storage option for cremated ashes)?  No, he didn’t know where he wanted to be placed to rest.   None of the options we could think of seemed ‘right’.  At one point in the conversation, we joked that since Brian was an avid coffee drinker, we should put his ashes in a coffee tin.  The more he thought about it, however, the more plausible the idea seemed.  He didn’t want us spending a lot of money on a storage container, and he wanted his ashes to have freedom of movement to be wherever we were.  A tin is also an unusual place for ashes, so it seemed fitting for Brian with his fun sense of humour.  The joke became reality.  After he passed, our adult children and I went to a local antique store and scoured the shelves for the right coffee tin.  We found lots of antique lard tins.  Lots of axle grease tins.  Lots of popcorn tins.  Then we found the coffee tin.   The size was perfect and the image on the tin was unique.  I remember going to the crematorium with our son, Aren, to pick up Brian’s ashes.  We brought the tin with us.   Aren carefully put the tin in the back-seat of his car and buckled it in with the seatbelt. 

A coffee tin full of ashes also ended up the title for my book.  It seemed fitting.   We put things of sentimental value in tins.  Since the invention of tins, they have been used to hold keepsakes, mementos, and things that are near to our heart.  Brian’s ashes are definitely a keepsake, and they are absolutely near to our heart. 

A coffee tin may be an unconventional place to put the ashes of a loved one.  But it works for me and my family.  The ashes are not in a coffee tin out of disrespect, or a lack of love or loyalty, or because we were too cheap to buy a fancy cremation urn.   The ashes are in a coffee tin out of respect for what Brian wanted. 

The stories that I tell on the pages of this website are my experiences only.  You may relate to them, you may not.  That is ok.  Each experience with grief is unique and individual.  I was recently talking to someone who said that they thought they were grieving improperly.  Their reaction to the passing of their father wasn’t what they expected, and they were handling it differently than other people in their family.  The truth is, there is no right or wrong way to grieve.  Your story belongs to you and no one else.  Your feelings and reactions also belong to you.  What you are going through is unique to you, just like Brian’s coffee tin is unique to us.  There is no judgement on these pages; there is only love and acceptance.