My Mother-in-Law, Missing in the Mail – It turns out the USPS frequently loses cremated remains

My mother-in-law lived 77 years and was now, in death, 11.48 pounds of ashes inside a $145 U.S. Postal Service overnight delivery box. A 22-digit consignment. Delivery to our home in California promised by 6 p.m. the next day. I kept refreshing the tracking page for updates, but the last timestamp stubbornly remained from the previous night.

Another couple of days passed and not only was there no delivery, the tracking page still hadn’t changed. Optimistically, I thought the holiday weekend might have delayed delivery. Or, notwithstanding the Postal Service’s long-ago claims of success when the weather was at its worst, the red alert of a snowstorm affecting deliveries could explain why Faunee had yet to arrive.

Four days after the scheduled delivery, I contacted the mortuary. They assured me everything on their end was handled properly. So I stopped by my local post office. After a brief huddle, workers there had no answers. They let me know that since insurance was attached, I could fill out a reimbursement claim form. That was cold comfort knowing that it would be impossible to reimburse our family for the loss of a woman with a magnificent, head-bending-backward laugh and an ethereal grace.