My Husband Died Abroad. As I Boarded The Plane Home, A Flight Attendant's Innocent Comment Broke Me.

The author and her husband Jeremy, on a sunny day road trip to see California poppies before everything changed.In August of last year, after an eight-month battle with cancer, my husband, Jeremy, passed away. We had flown back to his native Australia for his final weeks. He loved his home and his people too much to be anywhere else in the end.There’s no handbook for how to be a person after losing your person. Yet somehow, I stayed afloat. I planned his celebration of life, spent time with his family, wrote his eulogy, canceled his credit cards. You know, just a regular to-do list. But inside, I was drowning.I call this phase “grief drunk.” You’re handed the keys to a car and told to drive, even though you’re completely out of your mind. I wasn’t in my body. (I’m still not in my body.) I was hovering above it, watching myself do impossible things.Jeremy chose to be cremated. A few weeks before he died, we had one of many brutal but beautiful hospital conversations. He gave me a list of places he wanted his ashes spread. One of them was Sydney Harbour. So I planned to do that before flying home. Jess, one of his best friends, drove me to the crematorium. I couldn’t have done it alone.When we got there, we walked into an empty office. On the counter was a bag with a sticky note that said my name. Inside was a heavy cardboard cylinder with a certificate rubber-banded around it. Forty-four years of a beautiful life, reduced to a paper bag on a sunny afternoon. It felt like picking up takeout. No one even checked my ID. Back at Jess’s house, I realised I needed to pour some of him, some of his ashes, into something smaller to take to the Harbour. I asked for a jar or glass bottle. Jess pulled out Tupperware. I’m sure I gave her a horrified look. Then a jam jar. No.Absolutely not. Nothing felt right.Finally, she found a small glass bottle with a long neck. It felt… less wrong. We fashioned a newspaper funnel. I lifted the cardboard tube and began to pour my husband into a bottle, between her kids’ art on the fridge and the barking dog. I cracked a dark joke ― something like, “It looks like cat litter.” We both laughed at the absurdity of it all. Then I went to the bathroom to cry for the millionth time that week.Only five months earlier, he had been blowing out birthday candles on this same counter."No one prepares you for what this part looks like ― 44 years of life sitting on the floor of a car."I was suddenly so angry. I respected his choices, but I don’t think he realised what it would mean for me to carry him, to divide him, to pour him into bottles, to live through these moments repeatedly.Later that day, we took the bottle to the Harbour with a few of his closest friends and family. We took turns letting some of him go, watching the water take him in. It was surreal. Heartbreaking. And we all toasted to him, as we sat on the grass with the finest view Sydney has to offer. Jeremy loved this view. Eventually, it was time to return to the U.S. I had come with Jeremy, and I was leaving with him too, only this time, he was in my carry-on. I was headed to the airport, already a nervous flyer. Now I was also responsible for the most precious, painful cargo.At the airport, I whispered mantras to myself. Please don’t talk to me. Please don’t ask me questions. Just let me get on the plane.But of course, my bag was flagged.The TSA agent opened it. I stopped him. “It’s ashes,” I said, holding out the paperwork required to bring the cremated remains onto the flight.He nodded but still took them for additional screening. I waited, anxiously. I kept it together.He spent some time chatting with other officers, then ran the ashes through the X-ray machine no less than three times before he returned. He handed them back to me and asked, “So… what happened?”I stared at him. How could he not see the shell of a person standing in front of him? He asked this with the same ease as asking, “So, how was your day?” I don’t remember what I said. I probably just dryly responded: “My husband died.” What else is there?Making my way through the rest of the airport, I still kept it together. Again, I whispered to myself: Please don’t talk to me. Please don’t ask me questions. Just let me get on the plane.I hid behind my mask and hooded sweatshirt, tightly holding myself together as I waited to board. Finally, it was time.I had booked a business class seat so I could fall apart in my own private bubble. As I boarded, I realised I might not have the strength to lift my bag overhead. I tried anyway. I couldn’t.A flight attendant noticed and came over. “Let me help you,” she said.“It’s heavy,” I warned.We lifted it together. And that’s when it happened.“Whoa,” she said, laughing. “What do you have in here, bricks?”It was probably a small, seemingly insignificant joke she’d made hundreds of times. The air left the plane. I saw black. I felt like I was falling untethered through space. Her laugh an echo, somewhere in the distance.As I made my way back to the present moment, ringing in my ears, I finally crumpled. My face twisted. The tears came fast and hot. I couldn’t stop them.“It’s… my husband,” I whispered through gasped attempts at breathing into my suffocating mask.Her face turned ghost white. She gently closed the compartment, brought me tissues and water, and knelt beside me. “I’m so sorry. If you need anything, and I mean anything, we’re here.”I nodded, hiding behind the Kleenex. I was embarrassed for her, for me. Most of all, I wanted to tell Jeremy what happened. But he was in the overhead bin.The rest of the flight, the crew was incredibly kind. I’m sure she told them. They watched me quietly, from a distance. I slept. I watched films. I cried. I took my carry-on and got off the plane, and rolled my husband through LAX as I made my way to my friend who was waiting to pick me up to start the next part of my life.It’s been eight months since that flight. I don’t feel any closer to figuring out what life looks like now, but I do feel more comfortable talking about it. Grief doesn’t follow a timeline, which I’m oddly grateful for. I haven’t spread any more of Jeremy’s ashes yet, but I plan to this summer in Italy.For now, he sits on the dresser in our bedroom. I haven’t decided if that’s where he’ll stay. But I think part of me needs him close. At least for now.I think about that flight attendant sometimes. I wonder if she remembers the moment. If it keeps her up at night. If she ever tells the story of the worst joke she ever made.If she does, I hope she knows it wasn’t her fault. "The view of the Sydney Harbor where we spread Jeremy's ashes. He loved this view more than any other view in the world."I’ve learned that grief is like static, it buzzes through the most mundane moments. No one warned me about the absurd and ordinary moments that make up real grieving ― that there would be no ceremony in picking up ashes, or the surreal choreography of TSA screenings, or how a stranger’s joke would collapse me mid-aisle.I wrote this hoping that if we talked about these things more, really talked about them, maybe fewer people would feel so alone in the wreckage. Maybe we’d all be a little gentler. A little more careful with our words. A little more ready for what loss actually looks like.After all, we all came here on a round-trip ticket.Rosi Golan is a singer, songwriter and writer living in Los Angeles. You can find more of her work athttps://rosigolan.substack.com and her music on all streaming platforms.Related...After My Wife Died, I Found A 4-Word Text Message In Her Phone That Hit Me Like A SledgehammerMy Mom Abused Me For Years. After She Died, I Was Overwhelmed By What I Discovered In Her Diaries.My Husband Almost Died. When I Asked For Medical Help, I Was Appalled By The Response.

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