'My mother-in-law stole my son's ashes and I don't know what to do.' UPDATED
"My mother-in-law stole my son's ashes and I don't know what to do."
My son died just over a year ago when he was 7 and it's been hard on everyone in the family, obvs. MIL was pretty close with him, she babysat him for me while I worked, until he died.
Editor's Note: If you're not crying yet, OP posted a photo of her son: 😭
I felt more comfortable leaving him with her as she was a nurse (he was born at 24 weeks and had cerebral palsy & was generally medically fragile). MIL and I aren't too close, at first she didn't like me but seemed to warm up once SO and I had kids. She still babysits for us when needed, which is less often these days.
We had my son cremated. When he was cremated my MIL suggested that we get a few smaller urns and split up the ashes so we can all have an urn (us, ILs and my parents). Obviously that did NOT go down well with me and I said no.
She seemed to admit it was a bad idea and didn't mention it again. For mother's day this year we planned on getting MIL and my Mom a necklace with some of his ashes in, which she knew about as she'd been asking for one.
We were up for it (I fancied one myself so was going to get us all one) but, we never got around to doing it, which she seemed pretty irritated by at the time but never mentioned it again and thanked us for the other gift we sent her.
A few days ago she babysat my daughter at my house. Today I was cleaning and while I was cleaning the shelf that we have for our son for some of his things (pictures, trophies from baseball, ornaments etc), I noticed his urn was gone.
Naturally I freaked out, asked my daughter if she'd moved it even though she can't reach. It has NEVER been moved in the time it's been there. SO also had no clue & was as worried as my MIL is the only other person that has been in the house. So I called her.
She owned up to it right away and explained she took them so she can 'spend some time with him'!??? and get the ashes sent off for her gift because she was disheartened that I didn't get it sorted in time for Mother's Day.
She hid the urn in her bag so I wouldn't notice, and took it home. I told her she was completely out of order and demanded she bring the ashes back as I did not give her permission to STEAL HIS ASHES from his house and his family.
But she said, as his Grandma, she has every right to 'have him for a while'. F*ck. that. Even if she'd asked I probably would have said no but I'm in complete shock that she would just TAKE him like that?!?
She says she will bring his urn back tomorrow and told me not to be angry about it because what's done is done but every time I think about it I get so angry. I'm not being completely over the top to think that's f*&^ed up, am I?? I'm so worried now that she won't even bring him back. Am I overreacting?
Here's what people had to say to OP:
Holy s&^*, no you're not overreacting. She STOLE your son's ashes. That's really f*%&^d up, and I would absolutely go NC after that. And I might even press charges.
Oh man I’m so sorry this happened to you. She made a tragedy even worse. I’m surprise you didn’t go, no RUN, to get them back as you were speaking to her on the phone.
Not OTT at all. That is one of the worst things i’ve Ever read on here and i’ve been around a few years.
After comments started pouring in the OP provided a brief update.
UPDATE: Just adding that we did get his ashes back. I have commented with more details but it's buried in the comments somewhere. We plan to file a police report which we'll sort tonight as we can submit it online. We likely won't press charges but I want to start a paper trail. Just in case, and for peace of mind.
After the update people had this to say:
Is there a way you can confirm those are the true cremains of your son? Or have someone confirm they are actual cremains, at least?
It’s extremely disturbing that she would do this, and is so fixated on it; I’m concerned she’d switch the cremains with ashes of something else.
OP, you need to make sure what she brought back to you were his ashes. What this screamed to me while I was reading was "She totally stole that urn to swap out his remains so she can have him forever."
This is beyond the pale. This is beyond not okay. What did your husband say? And why didn't he March his ass over to her house to grab his son's ashes and set her straight?
An hour later, they provided another update in the comments.
Thank you for all the responses. I’ve read them all and read them to my SO too. He’s not good with confrontation but I think he understands now that it’s necessary. He is as angry but seems to have a lot of faith in her and doesn’t think she’ll do anything to them but I’m genuinely so worried that she will.
I told him either I’m going and I WILL get him back tonight or he is going and WILL get him tonight. Or I’ll call the police tonight. I won’t be able to sleep if I don’t have him tonight.
He doesn’t want to call the police as he doesn’t want to cause more drama (which is eye roll worthy to me as she instigated any drama herself) so he is going to get them tonight and will tell her that if she comes around uninvited we’ll call the police.
I think he’s giving her too much credit. And I don’t think he’ll be as stern on her as he needs to be. She clearly sees no issue with any of this so even when he gets them back, I might press charges anyway. After reading all the comments I think I’m underreacting; it’s hard to gauge sometimes as I’m so sensitive to anything when it comes to my son.
The next morning, the OP provided a full update.
Hi all, sorry it took me so long to respond and update. Hubby got him back last night. I will add that I did also want to go but LO was asleep, and SO wanted to deal with his Mom so I just let him and told him to call me to talk to her if she gets p*^%ed.
He says he told her to hand the urn over or he'll call the police, to which she rolled her eyes and said one night wouldn't make any difference, but she handed the urn back to my husband.
When he told her that I wanted to file a police report she apparently kicked off and got defensive and said I was just being ridiculous, no crime had been committed and the police won't care about some ashes when they have more important things to worry about.
SO was pretty shocked by how flippantly she spoke about it all (I think maybe he thought I was exaggerating how much of an a**hole she was being about it) so now agrees that we should file a police report so we plan to.
I'm not sure yet if I want to press charges but I agree with the comments about filing a police report if nothing else.
Oh, he also told her that if she comes over uninvited we will call the police as she is not allowed in our home. At least while we try to deal with what she did, and she won't be around our daughter until that happens, if it does. Personally I don't trust her anymore.
I don't know if she tampered with the ashes. The urn opens easily and the ashes are in a bag but it's only tied shut with an elastic band so she could've taken some.
It doesn't look like there's much taken though if she has because the contents look the same from what I remember (it has been about 10 months since I last saw them though. I don't look.) Maybe I'm just exhausted about the whole thing and sad but I don't care about that right now. I will eventually.
I do know that if I see her with a necklace that resembles the one she wanted I'll rage at the b*tch but right now I'm just sad and tired. I don't even want his ashes, I want him. They're not one and the same.
I want to blast her on social media and make sure all her friends see it and know what she did but I don't know if that's just petty and it could impact the outcome should I decide to press charges. Would it?
I don't want her to think she's gotten away with it even if we don't press charges. And a part of me thinks she'll post on social media (she's an avid user) before I do and give some warped story that isn't true and makes me look like the a**hole. So I want to give my side first but if it could end badly I'm not sure it's worth it.
14 days after their initial post, the OP responded with, "MIL and my sons ashes Update - We got a delivery today."
This one might be full of typos as I'm posting this quick as I've got a sick kid.
So we've been fortunate enough that MIL seems to have gotten the message and hasn't contacted us since SO went to her place to get the ashes back. My SO spoke with his Dad (FIL) who said that she claimed she's giving us the space we need and seems to think we'll get over it eventually but I think I'm even more angry at her now I've had the time to be less upset by it, now I'm just p*ssed.
This morning we had a delivery, addressed to me - didn't know what it could be, not ordered anything at all recently but figured I ordered something in my sleep deprived state at 3am. Wouldn't be the first time.
But no, it was a box with a little black fabric bag and inside was a locket, that has ashes in. Connecting the dots it was pretty clear straight away who the ashes belonged to and who the locket came from.
I don't know what she was thinking. I knew it was likely she'd taken some but sending me this just feels like a complete slap in the face. It's probably her poor attempt to apologise? But it feels so wrong and weird getting a part of my son as a 'gift' from my MIL who took him the way she did.
It's not even a nice locket. She knew what type of jewelry I was looking at and this is... the opposite of it. It's big and bulky and has the words 'together forever' in what looks like comic sans (which is already fading off).
It's not my style at all and it looks cheap. I know exactly what type of necklace she wanted made and I just know she'll be getting the one she wants made and this is probably some kind of attempt to justify that. I don't mean to be ungrateful but considering how she got the ashes I just... can't be grateful for it.
SO thinks we should just ignore it and do nothing. Put the ashes back with the rest and toss the locket. I want to put the ashes back and then put the darn locket in her mailbox, personally. We won't have to see her but we'd be sending the message.
It just makes me angry that she's treating him and his ashes like some kind of bargaining chip in what I assume is an attempt to make up for what she did.
Here were the top rated comments after all of these updates:
Disgusting how a mother herself is out to hurt another mother when she had only just lost her child even if it's a year ago. How low can people go?
My heart hurts for OP, I can't even imagine having to grieve my own child. But then to have to deal with the MIL's BS while still dealing with such an unbearable loss?! I'd lose my damn mind.
Always hated how the husband doesn't thinks it's a big deal. Don't want to cause drama when it's not OP's fault in the first place.
I know everyone has their own way of grieving but what the f*ck.
I had to do a double take at the title because WHAT ON EARTH??
I'm sorry but, to me anyway, stealing someone's ashes and splitting them and so on, is the biggest form of disrespect to them. Like, the ashes belong to a person, they are a person, how can MIL claim to love her grandson yet mistreat his ashes in the most awful way? I'm just disgusted, nothing more to add, shame on that woman.
I feel bad for everybody in this post, including MIL. Not excusing desecrating her grandson’s remains, which gets more messed up the more I think about it.
About 6 months later OP made this related post: "JNMIL threw out DD’s Christmas present."
A part of me is stoked that she has realized that we don’t want anything to do with her anymore. But I’m bummed that she promised my kid something that she’s now thrown away.
I’ve posted about JNMIL before. She stole my sons ashes. Since then we’ve been on... Rocky terms. She has FaceTimed DD twice since, which is all I’ve been allowing. We have arranged another sitter for when we need one, she’s not allowed in my home anymore.
On their first FaceTime, DD told JNMIL that she’d asked Santa for a specific stuffed animal she’d seen in target. We’d struggled to find this specific animal after she’d seen it that one time so I was bummed that we wouldn’t be able to get it for her. We found a few similar alternatives instead.
JNMIL texted me a picture the next day asking if the animal she’d just found in target was the one DD wanted. I said yes (I don’t know how she’d managed to find one) and despite wanting no contact, I asked if she could buy one for me and I’d pay her back. Instead she insisted that she buy it her for Christmas. I was like ... ok, sure.
It’s for my kids sake, and she’d already reluctantly agreed that any presents she gave would be left on our doorstep and she wouldn’t be allowed in the house at all during the holidays.
Next FaceTime, JNMIL actually hints to DD that she’s bought her the animal. DD catches on and all she starts to talk about to me is the fact that she’s going to get the toy. I was a bit bitter about it honestly. But anyway.
Fast forward a few days and she starts messaging my husband asking if she can come over on Christmas Eve like usual, because we shouldn’t be on bad terms on Christmas. Of course we continued to refuse. Bad terms aside, we were all sick and were not inviting anyone into our home, even those that we are on good terms with.
In response she said she wasn’t going to give DD the toy at all if she couldn’t give it her in person. So she tried to blackmail us which we didn’t give into.
So she threw out the toy. And told us that she had and blamed us for ‘ruining DD’s Christmas’. I’m furious. Not only did she TELL DD that she’d got it for her.. SHE then let her stupid vendetta against us ruin it for DD. She’s a witch and I hate her and I don’t know what to tell my poor baby girl when she doesn’t even have a present at all from her Grandma on Christmas Day.
My husband ran to multiple targets again today and they still don’t have one. He asked the staff and they said there’s none. I’ve asked on my local fb and a few people have said they’ll keep a look out. I’m just hoping that someone has one at home they don’t want so I can get her one before Christmas.
In the comments OP added this info:
We’re definitely going NC now. We were for a while, but then DD was missing her so much and it was making her miserable. Even though we knew she’d eventually get over missing her, we gave in to the FaceTime calls. Thought they’d be harmless but clearly not :/
Definitely NC now because you’re right that she’s not doing any of us any good. I feel really stupid for letting DD talk to her, honestly
I’m waiting for a message back from someone locally on Facebook who thinks they have the same one collecting dust, they’re sending me pictures. If it’s not the right one I’ll try and find a picture of it and send one to those offering to look. that would mean so much. I’m tearing up reading that so many of you are offering
Hopefully the local on Facebook has the right one so she can get it by Christmas
After posting OP came back with these edits:
ETA: thank you SO much to those offering to look. I have a promising lead on Facebook but if it falls through I will reach out. You all are awesome and I’m tearing up reading all your offers 💖
Edit again: the Facebook lead worked out!! Picking it up today. Thanks again for the offers but thankfully she’ll have one for Christmas. Making sure she knows it’s from US though, and not grandma.