Received today at 1:21 pm (Pacific): “Good afternoon, Jeffrey. I hope you and your family are doing well. I am reaching out to family members who have cremated remains in our care at Shaughnessey Banks Funeral Home. I found your contact information on your mother’s obituary from a few years ago. We currently have your brother Anthony’s cremated remains in our care. They came into our possession in 2010. Is there someone who would like to come and pick them up? — Brendan McKeon, Shaughnessey Banks Funeral Home.”
My brother’s ashes have been sitting in a box for 11 years and nobody said boo until today? If I was in the region I would drop by and suitably dispose. I could have sworn that I made arrangements after his passing (an accidental blend of swine flu, alcohol and Oxycontin) on 10.19.09. We were never especially “close”, but I attended a small farewell gathering of Tony’s friends at a Georgetown saloon.
When my sister passed from cancer in the spring of ’08 Tony and I scattered her remains into the Atlantic, right next to the Barnegat Lighthouse on Long Beach Island. My mother saw to my father’s remains when he died three months later. When my mom passed in ’15 I sprinkled her ashes around the Wilton Playshop, where she’d acted and directed in the ’60s and ’70s.
Tony was a good guy who fancied himself an X-factor prole. He was into healthy foods (wheat grass) and had excellent taste in films. He led something of a lonely life (no wife or girlfriend, no dog, no cat). The poor guy ran into a rough patch when the ’09 recession hit, Tony passed 11 and 1/4 years ago (10.19.09) in Georgetown, Connecticut.
